As historian Jay Feldman describes in his brilliantly researched and artfully written new book, Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America, there have indeed been a great many things wrong with this country specifically with respect to government attacks on civil liberties. Feldman pulls together a jaw-dropping historical catalogue of 20th Century examples where the United States government not only trampled the Bill of Rights, but did so while whipping up class warfare, xenophobic hysteria, and political mob violence, all on the pretext that war or the threat of war necessitated the abrogation of liberty.

It’s a propitious time to be welcoming in Greg Mitchell for a discussion about his book “The Campaign of the Century.” Over the past couple weeks, Mitchell has virtually turned over his blog at The Nation to painstakingly chronicling the Wikileaks story, and chronicling how the political, corporate and media elite have mounted an effort to discredit, destroy and punish Julian Assange. 76 years earlier, these forces came together in an electoral context, to disable the candidacy of Upton Sinclair for Governor of California.

Paul Street’s new book, The Empire’s New Clothes, closely examines the first year of the Obama administration, critically evaluating it within a context of strong liberal-Democratic support and fierce – even hysterical right-wing opposition. Barack Obama is seen very differently by Americans. Many see him as a symbol of how far America has come since the days of openly-supported racial segregation and the terroristic violence directed against the black community. Others see Obama as a dangerous “socialist/Marxist” who is threatening the American middle class and crippling future generations with “big government” and “unsustainable” debt.